Happiness is the path

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)

The beginning of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker suggests a meteor crash or an alien landing on a wilderness site that is now cordoned by the military. Not to be mistaken by the harassing act of following another person, the film is named after expert guides who lead individuals into the Zone to find the room where all of one’s deepest, innermost wishes become reality. Two men known simply as Writer and Professor are carefully directed to this mysterious place by a Stalker of whom has no ulterior motives. Though Writer and Professor share opposing viewpoints on the meaning of life along the way, their conscious search for satisfaction and happiness is plagued by their subconscious desires.

It’s a miracle this film was even made. After filming for a full year at deserted power plants in Estonia, Tarkovsky discovered the experimental Kodak stock he used was defected. Instead of abandoning the film outright, he refocused his energy and re-wrote the script and re-shot almost all of the film. The end product is vastly different from the original, but more true to his vision.

Methodical in pace and enthralling with moments of sheer, sublime beauty, Stalker is an exhausting yet rejuvenating sojourn into the fragility of the human spirit. There is a masterful dream sequence and panning shot that displays Tarkovsky’s stern attention to detail and his natural ability to establish compositions that stimulate the mind with wonder. As a collection of his trademark long takes, the film can seem overwrought and tedious for some, but the director’s intention was to evoke a sense of continuity within the frame where time, space and action become uniform and altogether fluid with the narrative. Tarkovsky’s goal was to film Stalker as if the whole film was made in one shot. In this shot, Tarkovsky captures more than images and sounds; he captures life.